WOW! You were there! Or you heard it on the scanner? Why the heck is it so hard to understand that a cop may be nervous about a person at a traffic stop with a weapon. Let me explain something to you: Let's say that there is a felon on the loose with a warrant for his arrest. Let's say that felon gets stopped for busted tail light. At this point the felon might be playing his luck and hoping the cop will just say, dude, your tail light is busted, have a nice day, but instead the cop wants license, insurance and registration and is at the passenger window. Now the felon has a gun in the glovebox that the cop is going to see the minute he opens it up. So, now the felon is going to play his luck again and tell the cop about the presence of the gun and hope the cop is going to be cool and say, OK, thanks for telling me, I'll get the registration. Now, at this point cop walks away from the car, because maybe the car belongs to a buddy of the felon and it didn't come up when the cop ran the plates. Now the felon knows as soon as his license is called in it's going to come back and he is going back to the slammer, so at this point the felon decides it's better to try to get away with shooting the cop than it is to be gauranteed to go back to the slammer. The cop has no idea what situation he is faced with when he comes up for a traffic stop. How hard is it to comprehend that maybe the cop would like to be in control of a gun instead of leaving it in the possession of a complete stranger to the cop at this point? Why do have such a problem with the cop taking the gun with him? Let me put it to you this way, I walk up to a felon on the street and ask him, Wow, that's a nice gun you are carrying, what kind is it? The felon is probably going to tell me, Joe Civilian, it's a Kimber or whatever and that's it. Now, put a uniform on me and the same incident happens. There is greater chance the outcome will be different if a cop does the same thing.
